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Think of coronavirus as a test run: Australian military leaders warn we must prepare for worse
As Australia was swept by panic buying and medical shortages this year, the scenes were eerily familiar for one of the country's most senior military planners.
In a secret meeting only a year earlier, the Defence Department's director of preparedness Cheryl Durrant and a group of Australian industry leaders had predicted a strikingly similar scenario.
"We predicted the unpredictable," says Ms Durrant, who left the department in January.
"We knew the problems, we knew this might be coming, we knew that various things needed to be done."
The ABC has obtained a confidential report prepared for Defence just a year before the COVID-19 outbreak, which provides a forecast of Australia's vulnerabilities in a global crisis.
Ms Durrant is speaking out about the predictions after ending her 30-year Defence career because she believes it is her duty to convince Australia to prepare for an increasingly unstable world.
"I've looked at the global situation," she says. "It's no use festering in a bunker somewhere in Canberra — it's a time of crisis."
She says the risks to Australia are snowballing, with climate change, US-China tensions and the rise of nationalist governments among the key threats to global stability.
The report, which Ms Durrant commissioned to plan for the growing threats, lays out a timeline of how Australian essential services would collapse within just three months if a crisis put a halt to global trade, causing even greater ramifications than COVID-19.
"If you think of the COVID crisis as a test run, it's really a critical thing for us to learn from this," she said.
"The lesson is expect the unexpected."
More @ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04...tralia-prepare-for-worse-coronavirus/12193228
As Australia was swept by panic buying and medical shortages this year, the scenes were eerily familiar for one of the country's most senior military planners.
In a secret meeting only a year earlier, the Defence Department's director of preparedness Cheryl Durrant and a group of Australian industry leaders had predicted a strikingly similar scenario.
"We predicted the unpredictable," says Ms Durrant, who left the department in January.
"We knew the problems, we knew this might be coming, we knew that various things needed to be done."
The ABC has obtained a confidential report prepared for Defence just a year before the COVID-19 outbreak, which provides a forecast of Australia's vulnerabilities in a global crisis.
Ms Durrant is speaking out about the predictions after ending her 30-year Defence career because she believes it is her duty to convince Australia to prepare for an increasingly unstable world.
"I've looked at the global situation," she says. "It's no use festering in a bunker somewhere in Canberra — it's a time of crisis."
She says the risks to Australia are snowballing, with climate change, US-China tensions and the rise of nationalist governments among the key threats to global stability.
The report, which Ms Durrant commissioned to plan for the growing threats, lays out a timeline of how Australian essential services would collapse within just three months if a crisis put a halt to global trade, causing even greater ramifications than COVID-19.
"If you think of the COVID crisis as a test run, it's really a critical thing for us to learn from this," she said.
"The lesson is expect the unexpected."
More @ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04...tralia-prepare-for-worse-coronavirus/12193228
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